FILE - The injectable drug Ozempic is shown Saturday, July 1, 2023, in Houston. Even as millions of older adults clamor for drugs like Ozempic and Vigovi, GLP-1 receptor agonists are expected to be used in people under 25 and under 12 between 2020 and 2023. Monthly consumption increased by almost 600%.
Dr. Mehmet Furkan Barak, an obesity-focused physician and scientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said people who have lost weight may feel ashamed of regaining that weight later.
"People were feeling guilty," Burke said. "But it was basically biology making you gain all these cravings and weight back, which is actually more of a problem than obesity. We know that it increases the risk of disease."
Studies have linked weight cycling to cardiovascular disease and diabetes, among other health problems.
That said, this is where a class of drugs called GLP-1 receptor agonists come in.
GLP-1 receptor agonists include the diabetes drug Ozempic, also known as Wegovy when used for weight loss. The drugs "bring people back to their factory settings" by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone, which the body uses as a signal to help the brain decide when to stop eating and when to eat more. Have to search.
"When you eat, the brain sets up a response that starts in your gut and your other organs and then goes to the brain and basically says, stop eating, stomach," Burke said. Fill up and use that energy," Burke said.
Burke said that often when people gain weight, become obese or develop diabetes, their levels of GLP-1 hormones decrease. He said that the body adapts to weight gain but not to weight loss.
"It always uses that network to get back. So it basically gives you wishes," he said. "But when we treat obesity systemically, it's completely reversible. And that's actually revolutionary, because all [previous] drugs didn't attack the system as a whole.
There is also some research on how people can use GLP-1 analogs to treat substance use disorders. The same brain command center that controls hunger and satiety signals is also involved in addiction, Burke said.
"In the brain, there's a part we call the hypothalamus ... that's a command center," he said. "So when you eat something, it gives you a signal: eat it again. So it's the same center when you get an addiction, when you get an opioid or when you drink alcohol, it's the same center. which gives you the same message: get it again.
GLP-1 drugs have quickly turned into blockbusters for the companies that make them, and are also bothering insurance companies with their unnecessary price tags.
Some of the obstacles, Burke said, are drug shortages and insurance companies not covering drug costs.
"That's probably the biggest challenge now, access," he said. "We want to treat obesity holistically and long-term. It's a chronic disease and needs to be treated as a chronic disease, not just for six months or a year.